


One Love, One Buzz, One Train, One Wreck

by roquentine



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aimless Draco Malfoy, Angst, Auror Harry Potter, Draco Does Some Pretty Bad Stuff, Emotional Manipulation, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Harry is Problematic, Infidelity, M/M, Pining Draco Malfoy, Unhappy Ending, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-07 20:28:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21223643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roquentine/pseuds/roquentine
Summary: Draco is desperately in love. Harry is not, but makes it hard to let go. Draco tries, he really does, but when he gives in to his moments of weakness, there are terrible consequences.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever HP fandom fic! Thank you, Quicksilvermaid, for the delicious setup: “After Harry breaks up with Draco, Draco sabotages every one of Harry’s future relationships, possibly including bodily harm. Harry finds out in the end.” I hope you like what I did with it. And thank you to the mods for running this terrible, awful, wonderful fest. It did my angsty heart good to be a part of it.

_**Three months in**_

There's a chasm between them. A fucking _chasm_. 

Draco is most aware of it when he is over Harry, moving in him, his mouth inhaling Harry’s skin, his hands gripping Harry’s back, every one of his senses nearly overstimulated.

He would never have guessed, before this all started, that watching Harry Potter come apart underneath him is the only time everything inside quietly sets itself to rights. The only time the grinding gears of his existence align, the day-to-day vise of being Draco Malfoy releases its grip.

He thinks it’s what peace must feel like. Or a drugs high, more like.

He chases it in those moments, and when he catches it, he relishes it, and wishes he could freeze time, stop it altogether, just live his life in that precious, exhausted liminal space.

Except Harry isn’t in that space with him. 

The chasm. The fucking _chasm_. 

To Draco it feels both close enough to step over and a mile wide at the same time.

He can feel when Harry is reaching for him, trying to come across, when his breathing is strained and his hands fist Draco’s hair and he slams their mouths together. Harry will make it rough, moan louder, buck harder, like he thinks he can bridge the gap through sheer, and slightly violent, force of will.

But it doesn’t work. It never happens. The theoretical bridge dissipates in their uniquely fucked up afterglow. They’re in the same bed, gulping the same air, but Draco is in one place, and Harry is in another, and Draco can’t yet admit to himself that it’s probably never going to change.

So he lays there, his forearm resting across his eyes, waiting for the inevitable.

“We can’t keep doing this.”

_There it is. _

Draco sighs. “Yes, so you say.”

“I mean it, Draco.”

“I think you do. So fuck off, then. Except, wait, you keep coming round.”

“I won’t be, not any more.”

“Right.”

“Ginny and I are getting married.”

Draco lifts his arm from his face and lets it fall bonelessly to the bed. This isn’t unexpected news, not really. He turns his head to narrow his eyes at Harry. “Why?”

“Because I love her,” he says, like it’s obvious, except his tone is almost angry.

“Right.”

“Stop saying that.”

“Why are you mad at _me_?”

“I’m not,” Harry all but yells.

Draco turns his head back to face the ceiling. He waits, but Harry doesn’t move, or own his bullshit.

He can’t help himself. “Does she know about us?”

“I don’t think so. Not really.”

“What does _that_ mean?”

“She knows we’re friends now. She doesn’t know we do… this.”

“Does she know you’re bi?”

“What?” Harry scoffs.

“Does she know you’re bisexual?”

“I’m not _bisexual_.” Harry fills the word with audible denial.

Draco chuckles derisively and waves his arm back and forth between them in a _what the fuck do you call this_ motion.

“Fuck off,” Harry mutters. “I don’t know what I am. I’ve never done this with any other bloke, I’ve never wanted to do this with any other bloke. I just... wanted you.”

Draco’s breath stutters on the past tense, but he doesn’t think Harry notices.

_Well, I _want_ you, you wanker. Present tense. I want you so fucking much, I'm so fucking in love, and you’re going to marry the Weaselette, and I think I might die._

“And you want her too?”

“I just told you, I love her.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“Draco…”

In one smooth motion Draco rolls on top of Harry and pins his wrists beside his head and looks down at him, sprawled in his bed, where Harry is saying he will never be again, and wonders what Harry would think if he could see that his heart, his cold cursed Malfoy heart, was breaking apart inside his chest.

He dares to lean down, his mouth hovering just above Harry's, and he waits, and when Harry moves to close the gap, Draco pulls one more deep, forceful kiss, and he's so fucking confused when he lifts up and they’re both breathing heavily but Harry’s green eyes are dull and Draco can’t stand it.

“So you want her, and you love her, and that’s why you’re going to marry her." Draco adjusts his grip on Harry's wrists. Harry licks his lips, but his expression stays bland. "And it's not because Ron'll be your brother, and Molly will knit you sweaters, and Charlie will show you dragons." Draco's voice drops, the way his heart has dropped into his stomach. "It's not because you'll finally have a family."

“Don’t be stupid,” Harry says indignantly, shoving Draco off and lurching from the bed. “I love Ginny, and I’m going to marry her, and not for her family, and you and I, we’re done with this.”

Draco falls back and stares at the ceiling and listens to Harry get dressed and storm out of the room, down the corridor, down the stairs, and out of the flat.

Harry and Ginny announce their engagement the next day.

* * * * *

_**One month later**_

He's only seen Harry at work and a couple of pub quizzes and their regular Saturday morning Ministry Quidditch league since that night. They haven’t had a conversation beyond hello, how’s it going, did you hear that Cannons match, and always when other people were around, and Draco always has to go off somewhere and collect himself after because the most meaningless interactions make his chest cave in like an Erumpent is sitting on it, and it’s a month later and he hasn’t figured out what he’s going to do about it.

Then, on an unremarkable Wednesday afternoon, Ron finds him in his broom closet of an office at the Ministry.

“Malfoy. It’s Harry’s stag do on Saturday. Are you in?”

Draco looks up from his endless piles of Auror expense reimbursement paperwork and narrows his eyes. “Stag do?”

“Yeah. It’s this thing where the groom and a bunch of his mates get together and get drunk. Surely you’ve heard of it.”

“Fuck off. Saint Potter couldn’t come down here and ask me himself?” Truth, he hadn't really expected to receive an invitation for this. (He _had_ received an owled invitation from the Weasleys for the wedding, which was in three weeks’ time, but hasn’t replied because there’s no way in hell he’s going, but he can’t shake the part of his upbringing that demands that he provide a polite and plausible reason for declining, and he hadn’t come up with one yet.)

“He’s in Croatia this week. We’re organizing it because he’s rubbish. Are you in or what? Everyone’s meeting for dinner at Brews and Stews at six, then we’ll come back to hit some clubs in Muggle London.”

“Very creative.”

“Whatever, don’t come then.” Ron shrugs, and turns to leave.

“No,” Draco says all too quickly, and rolls his eyes at himself. “I’ll be there. Sorry. I just… old habits.” He stands up, and feels ridiculous. “Thanks for asking me.”

Ron shrugs again. “Sure.”

* * * * *

_**Three days later**_

When Draco pulls open the door of the pub, he’s surprised to find the table full of not only the boys, but the girls too. Harry and Ginny are in the middle, laughing and talking and making moon eyes at each other, and he stands there trying to figure out how to get out of this when Ron bumps into him on his way back from the loo.

“What’s going on?” Draco asks, motioning at the table. “There’s… girls.”

Ron laughs. “Well spotted. They were having their hen night tonight with more or less the same agenda, so we just decided to have dinner together. Don’t worry, we’ll split up when we get back to London.”

“Great,” Draco says brightly, and heads to the counter to get a drink, what he is guessing will be the first of many. He’s promised himself he will be just another one of the crowd tonight, normal and sociable and not a moody, sarcastic dick, but also not actually talk to Harry at all if he can help it.

He’s pretty sure he can pull it off.

* * * * *

He does, though he loses count of both the number of bars they hit and the number of drinks he has in them, and when they end up in the same club as the girls around midnight they all just stay there, dancing and drinking and Draco even offers a fucking “Congratulations” and kiss on the cheek to Ginny, who giggles back a polite “Thank you!” and a magnanimous “I’m glad you and Harry are friends now,” which makes him want to die and cry and throw up all at once. Operation Draco Avoids Harry was a screaming success, so at least there’s that.

But then it’s last call, and Draco foolishly takes his eye off the bludger for _one second_, because he’s not paying attention in the crowded exodus from the bar and then Harry’s breath is in his ear - “Wait for me a minute?” - and his heart drops into his stomach, and he hates that that’s all it takes.

Then they’re out in the street, and everyone is saying their goodnights, some on the arms of each other, one or two with strangers picked up during the evening. Draco leans against a light pole and halfway closes his eyes.

Because Harry’s a few feet away, leaning into Ginny, motioning back to Draco. “Honestly, I’ve never seen him this drunk. Something’s been bothering him lately, I don’t know what, but I’m just gonna make sure he gets home okay. I’ll see you back at Grimmauld.” He kisses her, a real one, hands cradling her head, the whole thing. Draco does shut his eyes completely now, and pretends to sleep standing up, until he feels Harry pulling at his elbow.

They stumble along the pavement toward Draco’s flat, bumping into each other, and it’s familiar and comfortable and even this drunk he’s feeling the telltale buzz under his skin and he hates it and loves it and what the fuck is happening. 

“Are you actually walking me home, Potter?”

“Since when are we back to Potter, Malfoy?”

“Since I’m mad at you. I feel like such a girl.” _And you're getting married._

Harry laughs. “You’re definitely not a girl.”

“If only,” Draco says, and laughs although he isn’t joking. They’re quiet for a block.

Then, Harry: “I do know you’re mad at me, you know. You were avoiding me tonight.”

“Yes. I was.”

“Draco…”

“It’s fine, we’re fine, everything’s fine.” They’re at his front door. He moves in front of Harry, digging in his pocket for his keys.

“It isn’t.”

“Okay, maybe not, but there’s not much I can do about it, so...” He shoves his key into the lock and feels Harry come up behind him, crowding him against the doorjamb, and he lets his head fall against the door, already resigned, and he hates himself a little for wanting this as much as he does, and giving in so fucking easily.

“I miss you when you don’t talk to me,” Harry murmurs into the back of his head, inching his body even closer.

“Harry,” Draco says softly. “Fuck. Don’t expect me to stop this, okay? I won’t...” - his stomach drops as Harry’s breath ghosts across his neck - “... stop this.” _Why would I. Why would I ever._

“Good to know,” Harry replies. Draco can feel him grinning into the base of hairline. “You smell amazing.”

Draco shoves the door open and reaches back to bring Harry with him as they stumble into the sitting room. He throws his keys aside, Harry slams the door closed, and in a second they are on each other, mouths fused, and Draco spirals. He wants and wants and _wants_, and what he said is true, he can’t stop this, he'll never stop this, and right now he can’t remember why he should. _If this is all I get, I’ll take it. I’ll fucking take it._

And he takes it, Harry shoving him against the wall, Harry sliding his thigh between Draco's legs, Harry fisting his hands in Draco's hair and turning his head to the angle he wants, working his jaw open to the point of pain. Draco ruts against Harry's leg and Harry pulls them apart on a gasp. “One last time,” he breathes hotly.

_I’ll take it._

Draco doesn’t say anything, just sneaks a hand to the back of Harry’s head and shudders as Harry’s hand slides up under his shirt and scrapes across his back.

“Your wards are up?” Harry whispers before he covers Draco’s mouth again and they move toward the stairs.

Draco wonders if he notices that he doesn’t answer. Because they’re not up. He could do it wandlessly, right now, even drunk and hard and breathless, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t nox the lights in the living room. The front door isn’t even Muggle-locked.

_Come look for him, Weaselette, _he thinks, as they trip up the stairs because they won't stop kissing. _Come on. Come find him._

* * * * *

She does. She finds them both. Fortunately for everyone, they’re not actually in the middle of any particular activity, or even touching each other at this point, but they are naked, in a bed, and sleeping fitfully, in that drunk, post-fucking way.

“Harry,” she says calmly, from the doorway of Draco's bedroom.

Draco is only slightly startled at the sound of her voice, mildly surprised that he was able to will this moment into existence. He looks up at her, but it's dark and he can't tell if she's looking back at him. He looks over at Harry, who is snoring lightly, then drops his head back to the pillow and blinks blandly at the ceiling. With a fuzzy, post-orgasmic, still-slightly-drunk curiosity, he wonders what’s about to happen.

“Harry,” Ginny says again, louder, but not a shout, still unnervingly calm.

Harry’s breathing catches and he rubs a hand over his mouth as his eyes open. Then he’s up on one elbow and squinting towards the door. “Ginny? What the…” And then, dazedly, he seems to realize what’s happening. “Oh, fuck.”

“Yeah,” Ginny replies, almost brightly. “Let’s go.”

“Ginny...” Harry starts.

“Not now. You’re still drunk. Let’s just go.” She waits.

Harry hauls himself up to the edge of the bed, scrubs his face and runs his hands through his hair, heaves a sigh, then collects his clothes from the floor and pulls them on. Ginny turns to move back down the hall, and he silently shuffles after her.

Draco blinks at the ceiling until he hears them leave the flat. Then he twists toward Harry’s side of the bed, lowers his nose to the pillow, and breathes in, and tries not to think about the fact that from the moment Ginny appeared in the doorway, Harry didn't look back at him.

* * * * *

_**Two days later**_

There’s an owl, a form letter from Harry and Ginny, the wedding is off but we remain the best of friends, no need to feel awkward inviting us both to do stuff, if you sent us a gift it’s being returned, we’d appreciate your discretion with regard to the press, that’s it really, thank you for your support.

Draco tries to take the high yet casual road and owls Grimmauld Place. _I’m really sorry. I was so drunk and a bit distracted and obviously forgot to lock up. I never meant for any of what happened to happen. Glad you and G seem okay. Hope you and I are too._

The owl returns within the hour. _Ginny and I aren’t actually okay yet, but we will be. And you and I aren’t okay yet, but we will be. This was my fault, I know that, but I need some time._

Draco sighs. It wasn’t _entirely_ Harry’s fault, only _mostly_, but Draco’s gifted at justification, and all he did was make it a tiny bit easier for the truth to come out, and he’s fine with that.

Draco will give him time, and maybe when that time is up, he can finally figure out a way to bridge the fucking chasm.

_Maybe. Finally. Maybe._

#


	2. Chapter 2

_**Two months later**_

Well. While Draco is giving Harry time, Harry starts dating. Bloody hell.

It’s been two months since the wedding was cancelled, two months of their work/drinks/Quidditch-only dynamic, two months of Draco wondering if they were “okay” yet, and then fucking Granger decided Harry needed a rebound girl, and set him up with some bint called Tessa, an intern in the Department of Magical Transportation.

“She’s cute and she’s single,” Hermione is saying. “Word is her roommate, Astrid, who also works in DMT, is a nightmare and might hate you, but Tessa is super nice.”

They’re in the back of an enormous auditorium at some all-morning Ministry presentation. Harry and Hermione are in the very back row when Draco comes in and sits casually in the row in front of them, a few seats over. He’s never sure if he’s even invited to these things, but he shows up anyway because anything is better than chasing down dinner receipts all morning.

“Who’s Astrid and why does she hate me?”

“A lot of people hate you, Harry,” Ron calls back cheerfully from the row in front of Draco. Draco snorts, just to play along.

“I don’t know why. I’m delightful,” Harry says with certainty.

“Harry,” Hermione kicks at him, “focus. Forget about Astrid. Your girl’s name is Tessa. When you’re ready to go arrange your Portkey for Albania, ask her out. And don’t worry, because we’ve already talked about it, and she’ll say yes.”

Draco suddenly remembers a Floo call appointment he definitely does not have, and makes his excuses.

* * * * *

_He doesn’t love you. You stupid git. He doesn’t love you, he never will. It was just sex, it was always just sex. He was fucking bi-curious and you were safe. He doesn’t love you, he doesn’t want you, accept it and fucking move on already, this is getting pathetic._

Draco paces his tiny office a bit ineffectually, and he swears he’s almost convinced himself that he’s going to be fine when Harry Fucking Potter appears in his doorway and all the hard work he’s done in the last three hours convincing himself he’s going to be fine dissipates in a single exasperating second.

“Hey,” Harry says, looking awkward as fuck.

“Can I help you?” Draco replies with dry enthusiasm.

“Are you okay?” Harry asks. “Are _we_… okay?”

“I guess that’s up to you,” Draco says, “seeing as you were the one who said you needed time.”

“Oh,” Harry says, like he’s forgotten about it. “Yeah. Well, yeah, we’re okay, if you’re okay.”

"I am oh-kay," Draco says, emphasizing each syllable and feeling like the word has lost all meaning.

Harry closes the door to Draco’s office behind him. “You’re sure it doesn’t bother you that I’m going out with Tessa?”

Draco gapes at him. “What do you mean, _are_ going out? Already? You asked her already?”

Harry shrugs.

Draco laughs and then stops because he fears he might lapse into hysterics. “You don’t waste any time, do you? Look, I’m fine with it.” _Or I will be. Fuck. I have to be._ “I understand what we are and what we’re not.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry says.

Draco waves him off. “Please. I said we’re fine. Did you need something, or were you just coming by to check on my broken heart?” _I’m joking, see? See how I’m joking?_

“Uh, yeah, actually,” Harry says. “Can _you_ go up to DMT and talk to Tessa? There’s some paperwork around my trip to Canada last month that apparently needs sorting out.”

The hysteria bubbles back up to the surface. _This is my life now? _“You're asking me to go back to the department you just came from to talk to your girlfriend about some accounting?”

“She’s not my girlfriend, and she just mentioned that there’s a form missing from the file on my last trip that you usually provide.”

“Which form?”

“I don’t know. It had letters and numbers in it."

"Narrows it down."

"I broke the Portkey on that trip, if that helps.”

Draco rolls his eyes. “Okay. Sure. Fine. I’ll go talk to her. Put in a good word about how good you are in bed.”

Harry looks stricken for a second, and Draco laughs. “For fuck’s sake, Potter, I’m kidding. Your bi-secret is safe with me.”

Harry does not look convinced. “Draco…”

“_Harry_. It was a bad joke. Don’t worry about it. Now go away.”

* * * * *

Draco does go up to see Tessa the Intern, and he has to grudgingly admit that she does seem very nice. Bright, pretty, easy to talk to. They’re standing next to a spelled conveyor belt of files moving past them, looking for the one they need, when she says, “Anything you want to tell me about Harry?”

Draco chokes and coughs to cover it up, grateful that he can also blame a coughing fit for turning his cheeks red. “Sorry. So much dust on these files. What about Harry?”

She smiles, winningly, and he hates that she’s so damn likeable. “I mean, you two do have an epic history, so you must know the worst about him.”

“He’s a short superior git, Tess, I can’t _believe_ you said yes,” comes a nasally voice from the other side of a giant metal filing cabinet. 

Tessa shakes her head and smiles up at Draco. “That’s Astrid. She hates him. I’m short too, so I don’t mind that part, and he doesn’t seem that superior to me, even though he has cause to be.”

“He’s great,” Draco says, staring at the files whizzing past them, wondering how much longer he will have to be in this particular hell. “I’m sure you’ll get on.” He offers her the best smile he can come up with.

“You’re pretty tall. Hey, Astrid, this one’s pretty tall,” and Astrid peers around the cabinet and smiles. She’s also tall and blonde and Tessa looks back up at him brightly. “Are you single?”

* * * * *

Draco leaves DMT with a copy of Harry’s R-78E7 Broken Portkey Restitution form and, if he's not mistaken, an invitation from tall blonde Astrid to go clubbing the following weekend. "Just some of us from DMT and Magical Creatures, it’s a group thing, you should come, no big deal." He asked Tessa if she was going, and she said no, she’d be in Cornwall visiting her parents, but he should _totally_ go, it’ll be _totally _fun.

He said yes to get out of the room but has no intention of actually going. He can’t think of anything he’d rather do less than go clubbing with a bunch of Ministry interns. _Magical Creatures_ interns. Merlin’s tits.

But he’s laying in bed that night, thinking about how he needs to stop thinking about Harry and definitely, definitely needs to stop thinking about having a wank to thinking about Harry, and he thinks about Harry and Tessa and Tessa and Astrid and Astrid and clubbing, and then an image springs into his head.

The image evolves into an idea, and then into a plan. Well, more of a plot. A scheme, really.

It’s terrible. A terrible image, idea, plan, plot, scheme.

He idly thinks about how he would pull it off, how he has everything he needs (two elements in particular), how it all could come together, all while his better angels plead with him to just shut up and wank already. 

It wouldn’t _hurt_ anyone, this plan-plot-scheme, not really. It would be a bit of fun, a bit of a challenge, a bit of a flashback to the old days of sneaking around doing dumb shit he wasn’t supposed to, and probably, most definitely, it would not work anyway.

He’d never actually do it. Never _actually _pull it off.

* * * * *

_**Nine days later**_

When Draco gets home that night, he’s honestly a bit stunned but holy shit, it might have _worked_. He knows Astrid saw him in the club. He just can’t be certain that she saw what came afterward. _But it’s possible._

He had spent the week careening between tempting himself into trying and talking himself out of it, but when he heard Harry’s return from Albania had been delayed, he felt like the last unknown variable fell into place, and he couldn’t deny the temptation any more. 

He feels ridiculously pleased with himself, and only a little bit terrible.

And then he feels a little bit terrible that he only feels a little bit terrible.

* * * * *

_**Two nights later**_

The chickens hatched of his plan-plot-scheme come home to roost the following Sunday night when he’s pretending to read a book in his living room and there is a knock on his door.

“Draco!” a drunk Harry exclaims, almost like he is surprised to see Draco answering the door of his own flat.

He stumbles, literally stumbles through the doorway and into Draco, who can't believe how much he feels everything all at once at the contact of Harry’s body but, he hopes, manages to cover it as he maneuvers Harry into the sitting room and lets him fall to the couch.

Harry blinks up at him and grins stupidly.

“Tessa,” he begins, clearly finding words an effort, “broke up with me. If you can call it that after only two dates.”

Draco is glad Harry is as drunk as he is, such that he might not notice or later remember that Draco’s face registers the wrong kind of surprise at this.

“Really? Why? I mean, you know, sorry.” Draco is so taken aback, _holy shit it actually worked,_ that he feels like he doesn’t know what to do with his body, so he goes to the kitchen to get Harry a glass of water.

“Because,” Harry yells after him, “she is choosing to believe her completely insane liar of a roommate who hates me, over me.”

“Believe her about what?” Draco calls back. _Bless you, Astrid, you glorious Potter-hater. _

“Her roommate said she saw me and another girl with our tongues down each other’s throats outside a club on Friday night.”

_You don’t say._ “And did she?”

“No. I was in Albania, as you well know, or you will when you get around to processing my expense report and please don’t hassle me about it, I had unexpected bribes. Except actually by Friday I was in Croatia, because of a tip we got from one of those bribes, but we’re not supposed to tell anyone about Croatia yet, so Tessa thinks I came home on Thursday like I was supposed to but I didn’t and she was already in Cornwall and she doesn’t believe that I only got back this morning, she believes _Astrid_ who probably made the whole thing up because she _hates_ me.”

“I'm sorry." Draco holds the glass out to Harry, who takes it with one hand, and spills a bit out the side as he’s trying to sit up. "And she was worth getting this drunk over?” Without thinking Draco reaches for Harry's other hand and brings it to the glass, and wraps his own hands over Harry’s, and then awkwardly lets go.

Harry, now holding the glass like a child, drinks. “Probably not. I mean I liked her, and she was OK with _this_ whole thing, which was unexpectedly cool.”

“What whole thing?”

“Being bisexual.”

“Wait, you told her you were bisexual? Why?”

Harry shrugs, and his neck wobbles more than it’s supposed to, and he takes a moment to steady it. “Dunno. You had made that joke about my bi-secret, and she and I were having this horrible conversation trying to find out each other’s past number while still being flirty, and I said if I’m being honest it’s only two but it is one of each. She laughed and said that sounded hot. She probably would have been fine if Astrid had seen me making out with a bloke. But I wasn’t, I was making out with a girl, except I wasn’t making out with _anyone_, not even for information in Croatia, but I can’t convince her otherwise because Astrid is an exceptional liar.”

Harry falls back against the sofa with a yawn, and Draco takes the somewhat forgotten glass of water from where Harry is resting it on his crotch and tries not to let his fingers brush anything they shouldn’t be brushing. He sets the glass down on the coffee table as Harry shifts to stretch out on the couch.

“S’fine,” he mutters sleepily, his eyes already closed. “It’s not like I was in love with her. I liked her a lot, though, s’annoying that she thinks I’m a git. I’m not a git.” And then he snores.

So Draco throws a blanket over him and goes upstairs and lays in bed and exists in a paradox, one where he’s not exactly _happy_ about what he did, and he’s not _proud_ of himself, but he can’t bring himself to _regret_ it. Not even the tiniest little bit.

And later, when Harry moves into his room, and dips the bed, and slides a hand over his stomach, he doesn’t regret that either.

* * * * *

_**One week later**_

Tessa is evidently an oversharer, as Astrid spills the beans of Harry’s bisexuality to the Daily Prophet the following week.

Instantly the gossip becomes whether it was actually a bloke that broke up Harry and Ginny, and together they issue a statement that says yes, Harry is bisexual, but no, no one was responsible for their breakup, they themselves realized that they were not ready to be married, that's it, the end, please move on with your own lives now.

Draco stays home every night for two weeks watching crap Muggle telly, and newly openly bisexual non-DMT-intern-dating Harry doesn’t come round.

_He doesn’t love you. He doesn’t love you. He doesn’t. Love. You._

They’re back to work/drinks/Quidditch, and the Erumpent on Draco's chest.

#


	3. Chapter 3

_**Six weeks later**_

The new class of Aurors has arrived. They are presumably bright-eyed and eager on their first morning in the Ministry, but by the time Draco gets to them to go over their accounting procedures, it’s three o'clock in the afternoon on Day Three of their orientation, he's the last session, and they have had all the excitement drained out of them by rules and regulations and piles of paperwork they have to Reducio to carry back to their offices.

Draco is a bit thrown by Harry hovering in the back of the room, chatting with Ron and a few senior Aurors. He knows Ron and Harry work with the incoming classes a bit before they arrive at the Ministry, but they don’t usually attend the orientations. This is some boring shit, but Harry's here, his eyes are bright, he's _excited_ to be here, and Draco loses his place a couple of times. The newbies are too zoned out to notice.

He wraps up his presentation with a joke about how if they have any questions, their best bet is an interdepartmental memo, because it will take them years to figure out where his office is. They give him a polite chuckle and start to gather their stuff and make their thank-Merlin-this-part-is-over happy hour plans. Harry is standing next to one of the incoming, who is decidedly not zoned out and possibly the most handsome person Draco has ever seen in real life. Harry’s hand is on his shoulder. They’re laughing at something and leaning in towards each other. There’s a buzzing in Draco’s ears. He can’t think. Harry waves him over. He bumps into a desk on the way.

“Draco, this is Dashiell,” he hears Harry say. “We’ve been working together during the final two weeks of their training. Dash won the Moody Prize for this incoming class, he’s been a fantastic student." There's gazing. Draco grips the edge of the desk. "Anyway, I’ve been assigned to be his mentor during their integration period. Dash, this is Draco.”

Dash is Scottish and friendly, a wide open face and blue eyes under dark hair and they are clearly already so familiar and comfortable and then there's the _gazing_, and Draco smiles and shakes Dash’s hand and excuses himself to the loo where he brings up his lunch.

* * * * *

_**Three weeks later**_

Draco is trying to be happy for them. Okay, maybe not happy, but he's trying not to hate them. It’s killing him, but he's trying.

Harry is dating a man, and everything feels different. Like all the scenarios that left open the _possibility_ no longer apply. Like maybe Draco really was just an avenue for Harry's self-discovery, and now, hey, everything's discovered and also in the Daily Prophet, and so he's going for it.

With someone else.

So these days, the torch Draco is carrying seems particularly, pathetically futile. And so, he’s trying.

Harry-and-Dash are, basically, an enormous open secret at work. They want to stay together as an Auror unit during the new class's integration, so Harry denies their romantic status to the higher-ups, but it’s clear to everyone who spends two minutes in their presence that they’re totally into each other, and you never see one without the other around the building.

Harry has stopped by Draco’s office a couple of times (blessedly alone) on bullshit paperwork pretexts but really, Draco senses an imminent "Are you sure you're okay with this” query, which Draco suspects is a conversation neither of them really want to have anyway, so he distracts him by quizzing him about a bunch of rules-and-regulations changes or running out pretending to be late for a meeting or once, starting a literal fire on his desk, which was kind of an accident but succeeded in making Harry give up on his bullshit pretext visits.

So he's trying, and days are fine. He has a total and complete handle on days. At work he never runs out of paper to push and he can keep himself as busy as he wants to, and he can even manage lunch, such that he can sit with Harry-and-Dash and Ron-and-Hermione and be perfectly enjoyable company. On Saturday mornings, Dash comes to cheer on the DMLE Quidditch team, and Draco is _fine_, he can focus on the Snitch when he’s in as Seeker, and he doesn't stare daggers at Dash when Harry’s in, and he goes to lunch with everyone and laughs and drinks and he honestly doesn’t _always_ feel like he wants to die afterwards. Not _always_.

He's making excellent progress with days.

But the nights.

The nights are not great.

He’s figured out how to be okay in the evenings, when he can pretend everything is just as it’s always been. He cooks some dinner, has a drink or two, and distracts himself just fine with crap telly or Puddlemere on the wireless or some dumb Muggle crime novel.

But he dreads going to bed.

Before, he had a routine, where he would fantasize about Harry a bit, have a wank more often than not, and drop off to sleep without much fuss.

Now, though, there's a problem.

Which is that every night, the moment he closes his eyes, he’s plagued by images of everything Harry-and-Dash might be doing right that minute. He imagines every activity, every position, a hand slicking over a broad back, a cock disappearing into a wet mouth, the moans, the groans, the uncontrollable shouts of orgasm.

(Because in Draco’s mind they’re pretty much having sex every minute they’re not at work. He’s almost entirely sure he’s not wrong about this.)

On the really bad nights, instead of just playing standard Harry-and-Dash sex acts on a loop, he tortures himself a bit extra by wondering if Dash has found the spot below Harry’s hipbone that can make him come untouched if you suck on it just right.

Or if Harry has confessed that sometimes, when he’s in the right mood, he gets off on you holding his head and fucking down into his throat.

Or if Dash has realized that Harry has no sensation in his right nipple but if you pull the left one into your teeth, just this side of too hard, he will fist your hair as his hips buck off the bed.

Or if Harry has tried lazily kissing his way down Dash’s spine, the way _Draco_ loves him to do, and if he ever even thinks of Draco when he does it.

And he _hates_ that Dash gets one night after the next to learn Harry’s body, and what different parts of his skin taste like, and which parts make him crazy when you just skim them with your fingertips, because Harry and Draco never, not once, spent two consecutive nights together, because Harry and Draco never were Harry-and-Draco.

_And_ he hates fucking _biology_, because thinking about all this still gets him hard, and the last thing he wants to do is jerk off to thoughts of Harry-and-Dash.

So tonight he turns over, and balls his fists up under the pillow, and raises his hips and fucks into the mattress and tries not to think about the feel of Harry underneath him, of fucking into him with his legs over his shoulders, about the smell of sweat on Harry's neck or the feel of the dip of his Adam’s apple against his tongue, about the hot breath in his ear and the slick hands on his back pulling him closer, fucking him harder, and the guttural cries of _yes, yes, just like that, fuck, Draco, yessss..._

He comes against the sheets with a cry, then a muffled scream into the pillow, and gives over to another demanding release when his orgasm has subsided, letting out the sobs of frustration and sadness and in that moment he wants nothing more than to forget that spot on Harry’s hipbone and the feel of Harry’s mouth on his spine and if he’s honest, most of all, the horrible ache of _love_, the love that he can’t seem to shake loose, and the love that Harry clearly now has for someone else.

He just wants to _forget._

_Forget._

* * * * *

And that’s how quickly it happens. In the blink of an eye, in the instantaneous firing of the exact right combination of synapses.

* * * * *

He ignores it until he’s finished the sobbing, and the shudders have subsided, and his breathing has evened out. He flips the damp pillow over and rolls to his back, staring into the moonlit darkness of his room. He casts a quick cleaning spell and dismisses the blink-of-an-eye out of hand.

It’s crazy. It’s _batshit_ crazy. Even for Draco Malfoy.

And yet.

_No. You got lucky last time, but this is ridiculous, and could go wrong in a hundred different ways, and you’re not that desperate._

_You’re not._

He might be, though. And the problem is that every night after that, the more he tries to stop thinking about it, the more it makes sense, and the more he can justify it as his one final chance.

Rationalization is a tricky, tricky thing.

* * * * *

_**One week later**_

Draco finds out about the mission to Yorkshire entirely by accident.

He receives an IM from a new Auror named Lesley, who has been paired with Ron during integration. The memo says she’s been assigned to a Night Runner recon mission at Devil’s Arrows that’s supposed to happen on Sunday evening, and she’d like to stay over in Yorkshire to visit an aunt who will be returning to London with her, and could she expense the return journey by train, since she won’t be apparating?

Draco reads the IM over and over, and breathes in and out.

_Devil’s Arrows. Sunday evening._

It’s the perfect opportunity to do the thing he cannot believe he’s been thinking about doing but he knows full well he is, in fact, going to do.

* * * * *

_**Five days later**_

Draco arrives before sunset, crawls under a hedge that gives him a good view of all the Devil's Arrows stones, and cloaks himself in a disillusionment charm. He doesn’t know _what_ is going to happen here, only that _something_ is supposed to. (It’s so annoying that he can’t get any intel on missions ahead of time on purpose without creating about six different paper trails that would lead right back to him. He’s sneaky, but he still hasn’t figured out how to defeat the Ministry’s voluminous and, as far as he’s concerned, needlessly duplicative cross-checks.)

He settles in, sitting cross-legged on the ground between the shrubs, wand in hand, scanning the quiet monument for any activity. He doesn’t even know if the opportunity he needs will present itself, but if it does, he’s prepared to take it. He’s spent the last five days rationalizing and compartmentalizing and justifying, and he’s ready.

Shortly after dark, Harry, Ron, Dash, and Lesley apparate into existence about a hundred yards from where he is. He can’t hear them very well, and he knows _he_ has to be prepared to disapparate the moment one of them starts to scan for charms near where he is, except they haven’t even been on the scene thirty seconds when all hell breaks loose.

Spells from at least a dozen wands flash in their direction from the treeline beyond them. The Night Runners are cloaked but not perfectly, appearing as visual field interruptions, so the only choice for the Aurors is to aim at the source of the spellcasts. He sees Ron fly up and hit the ground hard, but he throws a good jinx back as he finds his feet and starts running. Harry is shouting things. There’s a lot of noise, the Night Runners sound like banshees as they are firing off spells and hexes, but Dash and Lesley are blocking well as Ron and Harry try to drive a few of them back to trap them in the treeline.

Draco takes a deep breath when he realizes that the chaos is actually exactly the cover he needs. He can do what he came here to do. He emerges from the hedgerow and stands up, feeling the disillusionment charm shift around him.

_Just do it. It’ll be fine. You can do this. You’re a powerful wizard. He’ll be fine._

_He just won’t love Harry anymore._

He tunes out the noise of the fight all around him. He raises his wand and tracks Dash, who is spinning in place, countering spells coming at him from every angle with wicked speed and a gleam in his eye. Draco can’t deny the young man’s natural talent, his fearlessness, even his beauty in the middle of all this mayhem.

He was never going to be able to compete with it.

_Forget you love Harry. Forget you love Harry. Forget you love Harry._

_Obliviate._

He feels the spell travel from the back of his neck, across his shoulder, and down his arm, like his bones are electrified.

Dash looks around like he feels something odd, suddenly confused in the melee. His eyes have gone dull.

Draco disapparates before he sees that Dash drops to the ground like a stone.

* * * * *

Yorkshire may have been mild, but London is pouring with rain when Draco lands at the apparition point near his flat. He races home, running on adrenaline, and pours himself a drink before he even bothers to dry off.

_I can’t believe I did that. I really just did that. I can’t believe I did that._

There was fighting and spellcasting and so much noise, and it was four against what looked like two dozen, and two of the four were pretty new, and he definitely distracted one of them for a moment or two as his memories of Harry rewrote themselves, and suddenly he’s nervous that any of them actually made it out.

_No. I’m sure it’s fine. Ron and Harry have been up against a lot worse. They’re fine. Everything’s going to be fine._

He has another drink, and even though it’s early, he can’t think of anything else to do but shower and go to bed.

He doesn’t sleep.

* * * * *

At two in the morning, someone is banging on his front door, but not urgently, just slowly and steadily. It’s almost eerie. From his bed he casts the spell to visualize the entryway through the wards.

Harry. He’s standing there, in the rain, completely soaked through, his head bowed, banging on the door like he’s about to run out of energy to even do that.

Draco grabs a towel on his way downstairs and pulls the door open.

Harry just stands there.

“Are you okay?”

“No.” Harry says simply. He doesn’t move. “It’s Dash.” His voice catches. He’s been crying. He _is_ crying.

Draco doesn’t say anything, just opens the door wider and holds out the towel.

Harry comes in, pulls his glasses off, presses his face to the towel, takes a deep, shuddering breath, runs the towel over his head. He looks down at himself, then at Draco. “Should I… your sofa…”

Draco waves him off. “Don't worry about it. Sit. What happened?”

Harry takes a deep breath as he sits, then another. “A Night Runner incursion,” he says finally. “At the Devil’s Arrows. We heard there was a two-member advance team coming in from Croatia. Ron and I took Dash and Lesley up there to try to shake them down, get information on when, where, how many, what they were after. It sounded textbook, a great first recon run for them. But our intel was bad, there were already twenty of them making camp, not two. They can sense our magic, so they must have felt us apparate in, and they struck almost immediately. It was like they were _waiting_ for us. It was chaotic. Dash got hit.”

Draco’s eyes go wide, though not for the reason Harry thinks. “Fuck.”

_Shit. I didn’t mean for him to get hurt. The spell must have distracted him for an extra second. Fuck._

“It was getting dark, and there was so much noise. We needed to pull back, but we couldn’t communicate. We fought them off for a few minutes, and then I saw him on the ground, not moving, but I couldn’t get to him. Ron and Lesley finally drew fire away, and I was able to grab him and apparate us to St. Mungo’s. They were able to jump right after, thank Merlin.”

“So how is he?”

“Physically, he’s fine,” Harry says, his voice breaking. The tears well up and he doesn’t try to do anything about them. “But mentally, his memory... he… he doesn’t…”

He cries a minute, and Draco sits on the coffee table across from him. _You’ll be okay. I’m right here._

Finally Harry takes a deep breath, and looks up at Draco.

“He’s done. Whatever they did to him in the fight, a confusion spell, or a memory charm, he’s forgotten everything since the day he graduated from Hogwarts. They ran some initial tests tonight, which already show a radically impaired ability to make new memories. There’s a chance the damage isn’t permanent, but it’s months of intense magical therapy and possibly even a Muggle operation.” Harry’s voice breaks.

Draco can’t breathe.

_No. No. No. Fuck. What did I do._

“I’m so sorry, Harry,” he chokes out. 

“He… he forgot me completely. I mean, he knew _of_ me, the way everyone does, but he didn’t know _me._ He didn’t know why Harry Potter was visiting him in the hospital. It was like we’d never met. _Fuck._”

_Fuck._

Harry covers his face and gives over to gut-wrenching sobs. Draco stands up and goes to the bar. He leans over it, terrified, trying as hard as he can not to be sick all over his carpet.

_Draco Lucius Malfoy, what the actual fuck did you do._

He’s glad Harry won’t notice how badly his hands are shaking as he pours two large firewhiskies and carries them to the coffee table. He sits down next to Harry and gently puts one hand on his back.

“He’s gone,” Harry says into his hands. “The Dash I knew, the Dash I fell in love with, the one I went to work with today, he’s just gone. He was good, a good person, and I loved him, and he’s gone.”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Draco says, over and over again, smoothing his hand over Harry’s soaking wet coat.

_And I am. Fucking hell, I am so, so sorry._

* * * * *

After a while, when Harry’s breathing returns to normal, Draco presses the glass of firewhisky into his hand. “Here. Drink this. Then maybe go upstairs, get out of these clothes, take a shower? I still have some of your stuff to change into. You can stay here if you want.”

“Thank you,” Harry says, standing slowly. He downs the firewhisky in two gulps and hands the glass back to Draco. “I might need more of that.”

“‘Course,” Draco says. _I think I need gallons._

Draco spell-dries the sofa and puts a blanket and pillow on it, pours a couple more drinks, then follows the water trail upstairs, drying it as he goes. He pulls an old t-shirt and joggers of Harry’s from a drawer and sets them quietly in the bathroom, pulling his soaked clothes from the floor and spell-drying those as well. He folds them neatly, setting them on the arm of the chair.

He sits on the edge of the bed and waits until Harry emerges from the bathroom, in the t-shirt and joggers, toweling his hair dry.

Draco hands him a glass. “Feel better?”

Harry sips at the drink, and nods. “I do. Yeah. Some.” He tosses the towel in the corner and sits next to Draco with a heavy sigh.

Draco doesn’t look at him. “I, uh, spell-dried the couch, put down a blanket. It should be fine.”

Harry nods again. “Thanks.” He takes another swig of his drink, stares into the glass. “Draco?”

“Yeah?”

“Am I a terrible person if I don’t want to sleep downstairs?”

_Merlin. Of the two of us in this room, you are not the terrible person._

Draco downs his drink in one go. Harry finishes his. Draco reaches for his glass and sets them both on the floor, and when he sits back up, Harry kisses him, hard and deep.

Draco never gets tired of this. Never. Every time, he feels like he is tasting Harry for the first time, but also like it’s home, like it’s _right_, like it’s where he _belongs_. Every cell in his body adjusts and settles in place, and everything outside of the room, the entire rest of his life, disappears. It's just him, and Harry, and their stupid goddamned chasm that maybe, tonight, maybe...

Harry’s mouth is working its way up Draco’s jaw, until it reaches his ear. “Make me forget, Draco,” Harry whispers, moving back to pull their foreheads together, holding his head, gentle and firm and possessive, and Draco sinks into it. His hands run along Harry’s arms to curve around his shoulder blades. His body is warm from the shower. He smells so clean.

Harry kisses him again as they shift closer to each other. “I just want to forget.” Another kiss, the intensity building. “Fuck, Draco, please…”

_Yes. Me too. Let’s forget everything._

* * * * *

Afterwards, they lay facing each other. The chasm remains, same as it ever was.

Harry tucks his hands under his head. “I know what I’m doing, you know. I know it isn’t fair to you.”

Draco rolls his eyes. “I’m not stopping you.”

“You should be. I’m so fucking selfish. Don’t you think I recognize it? I show up here, I know you aren’t going to turn me away. I’m taking advantage of you.”

“Merlin, Potter. You can’t take advantage of someone who’s well aware of what you’re asking, and choosing to give it to you. I’m choosing this, all right? Give your guilt complex a rest. You lost someone. I’m your friend.”

Harry’s voice drops to a whisper. “You want more.”

Draco's eyes fill in a heartbeat, and he has no choice but to let Harry see them. “It doesn’t matter, okay? If this is what I get, if this what I can have of you, then I'm okay with it. Let’s face it, I probably don’t deserve whatever ‘more’ means anyway. You may not have noticed, but I’m kind of a prat.”

_I don’t deserve more. Not after what I did tonight. I don’t deserve anything._

Harry stares at him for a second, then reaches a hand to Draco’s jaw, brushes his thumb over the dampness on his cheek. Draco grips Harry’s wrist and slides his hand so it covers his mouth, pressing a kiss to his palm.

_I love you,_ Draco thinks, as hard as he can think anything.

It’s probably the most tender moment they’ve ever shared, and it’s over in a second, when Harry moves his hand back around to grip Draco’s neck and bring their mouths together, then pushes Draco's body back into the mattress and covers it with his own.

#


	4. Chapter 4

_**One month later**_

Harry shakes his head at Ron. “It’s too soon.”

They’re packing up their gear after their Saturday Quidditch match, during which they beat the squad from International Magical Cooperation for the first time all year. Since Harry and Draco generally sub in and out at Seeker, they don’t actually interact that much during the game, which works out well for Draco now because they’re back in their weird stasis, which Draco despairs of ever escaping.

He has a feeling Harry is trying to get Draco to move on. It's pointless. It's just more waiting. So he'll wait. It's what he does.

Except that now Ron is trying to get Harry to ask out some bloke from the Department of Magical Games and Sports.

“Mate, you don’t have to marry the guy. But he just started in Games and Sports, you know he’s got to have some super secret snazzy broom prototypes. I’m just saying, ask him to spend a couple hours flying with you. It doesn’t have to be a thing. Might end up a thing, eventually, way down the road, but it could just be you getting a wicked new broom.”

Draco feels like he is doing a really good job of pretending he can’t hear any of this despite the fact that he’s no more than ten feet away. He shoves the last of his gear into his rucksack with probably more force than necessary and stands up.

“Well, see you Monday, then.”

“Oy,” Ron says, “You’re not coming to the pub? It’s on IMC, they were talking crap before the match so we got them to buy us lunch if we won.”

Draco spitballs. “Actually, I thought I would go into the office for a bit. I have a backlog a mile high. Probably literally, I haven't actually measured.” He smiles and hopes it looks casual.

Ron grins. “Bummer. But Harry, maybe you should go back with him, go find Sam. He’s probably still setting up shop in the off hours.”

“Mind your own business, Ron,” Harry says hotly. He doesn’t look at Draco.

“You _are_ my business, Harry. Your happiness, and wicked brooms, are definitely my business.” Ron hoists his gear over his shoulder and heads off to catch up with the others on their way to lunch. “Full moon tonight,” he calls over his shoulder. “Great night for some flying.”

Draco watches him walk away just because he doesn’t want to look back at Harry, until it’s weird that he’s watching him walk away so long, so he looks at the ground instead.

“Yeah, I, um, don’t think I’m going into work after all,” Draco says as nonchalantly as totally fake nonchalance can sound.

“Okay,” Harry says. “You want to go up to lunch?”

“I don’t think so.” Draco smiles. “You should go back to work, though, and see about this new broom guy.”

“Yeah. Ron has my best interests at heart, I’m sure.”

“Yeah. See you Monday?”

“See you Monday.”

_This is fine._

* * * * *

Later, after dark, under the light of the full moon, Draco walks back over to the Ministry Quidditch pitch. 

He doesn’t really know why. He supposes some part of him thinks that seeing what actually happens is better than what he tends to come up with in his imagination.

Or he just likes torturing himself, which sounds about right.

But he believes that he meant what he said to Harry. He’ll take what he can get from now on, and if that’s being in unrequited love with a shag here and there when Harry is between actual partners, then it’s fine. As unfair lots in life go, this isn’t even in Draco Malfoy’s top ten. And it really is all he deserves, for more reasons than Harry will ever know.

Because what happened to Dash scared the living shit out of him.

He did a lot of terrible things under Voldemort, but those were _orders_, and Draco forgave himself, along with the Wizengamot, and Harry, and because Harry did, most of his classmates did.

But Dash was all him. He feels sick when he lets himself think about it too long. He can't do anything like that anymore. He’s done interfering.

He slips underneath the stands at one end, winding his way to the edge of the pitch but staying under the bleachers, and peers at the two men zooming around in the night sky. He’s done interfering, but it doesn’t mean he still doesn’t _want_ to. He is who he is, after all. He’s not made of stone. But he has enough regret and remorse not to _act_ on anything, not again. He might entertain the odd thought, indulge in harmless imagination about what might happen right now if, say, a hurling hex...

One second later, Sam’s body hits the ground with a sickening thud.

Draco can’t believe his eyes.

_What. The. FUCK._

How did that _happen_? He didn’t cast the hex. He _didn’t._ He _thought_ about casting the hex, but he didn’t actually _do _it.

Did he?

No. No. His wandless magic skills are basic, first-year casts, and some protection spells. He can’t do _hurling hexes_ wandlessly, or by accident. He had no honest intent. You have to _mean_ it. He definitely didn’t. He didn’t.

_I didn’t_.

Draco is frozen, mind spinning, staring at Sam’s lifeless body, as Harry zooms down out of the air, nearly crash landing in his haste to get to his side. 

But then an owl screeches, a bright harsh sound in the quiet field behind the stands, and Draco startles. His head whips around. He shuts his eyes.

And everything is over.

Because his movement caused the moonlight to catch on his hair, and when he turns his head slowly back, and opens his eyes, Harry is staring directly at him.

Draco feels time slow down as he watches the initial confusion on Harry’s face morph into horrified comprehension.

In a rush, Harry takes a deep breath, and yells at the top of his lungs: “_MAL…._”

Draco disapparates before he hears the “_...FOY!_”

* * * * *

He paces the flat for a panicked hour, slamming one drink and nursing a second, then a second hour and a third drink, but his mind won’t stop racing. _Why. Why. Why._

He kept telling himself that he didn’t mean for everything to turn out the way it did, he didn’t. Ginny really wasn’t his fault, Harry was the one cheating on her, he just helped everything get out in the open. He supposed he should feel some guilt about that, but he doesn’t.

Tessa _was_ his fault, admittedly, but she was never going to be The One, and he didn’t do anything _to_ her, not really. Harry could have found a way to prove he was out of town if he had cared that much about salvaging the relationship. Instead he got drunk and fucked Draco, and Draco wasn’t going to be sorry about that.

Sam really was an accident, _please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead,_ but that hardly matters now, not after Dash.

Dash. Fucking hell. What he did is unforgivable. There's no getting around that.

The reckoning comes in hour three.

A house-shaking bang on the door.

“Draco, let me the fuck in, right now! Lower your wards and open this door or I swear to Merlin I will _burn this fucking house down around you_.” There’s more banging. Draco feels it in his teeth.

From where he stands, he casts the spell to lower the wards, then takes a deep breath and moves to unlock and open the door by hand. Harry blows past him, to the center of the room, and he looks ready to fucking _explode._ Draco locks the door and slowly turns to face the conversation that he already knows is going to alter the course of the rest of his life.

“They were _all you_. I’m right, aren’t I.” Statements, not questions. “The second I saw you, hiding under the stands like a freak, it all fell on me like the walls of the fucking castle. _All of this has been you_.”

“Harry…” Draco doesn’t actually know what he could say next, but it doesn’t matter.

“_Shut up._ I can’t believe it took me this long to put all of it together. You made sure Ginny found out about us. That was on me, really, but you didn’t _forget_ to put your wards up. You just didn’t do it, and made it easy for her to walk in on us.”

Draco’s eyes glance to the ground and then back up, an instantaneous movement, but enough for Harry to see the confession in it.

“Then you, what, glamoured as me? Polyjuiced? While I was in Albania? And you pulled a girl where you knew Astrid would see you, knowing how much she hated me, knowing she’d convince Tessa to dump me. Then you...”

Harry takes a breath, like he can’t believe what he’s about to say. “God, you fucking _obliviated_ Dash, didn’t you. It wasn’t the Night Runners at all. It was _you_. You found out about the mission somehow. It was _your_ magic they sensed, that put them on alert. You were there, right? Hiding somewhere? And you _ruined_ him.”

“I didn’t mean…” 

“_Shut. The fuck. Up._ I can’t _listen_ to you right now. He was the best incoming Auror we had, had the highest marks in a decade, maybe the best one there would ever be. And you _destroyed_ him to what, make him forget about me? _You did that to him,_ and then you let me come here that night and... For fuck’s sake, what is _wrong_ with you?

“And now tonight. This new guy? Sam? We hadn’t even started. We didn’t know anything about each other. I don’t even know his fucking last name.”

“Is he…?” Draco whispers. He braces himself. _Don’t be dead. Fuck._

“He’s alive, but they’re saying it’s at least a month in St. Mungo’s and the recovery will be painful as fuck. You almost fucking killed him, Draco.”

“I’m so sorry. It was an accident. I wasn’t trying to…” Harry won’t believe him, he has no reason to believe him. And it’s not like this one would restore the balance if Harry understood what happened.

“I don’t care. _I don’t care_. Was this _love_? Did you think you were doing all of this out of _love_? Are you fucking kidding me? Look, we had a childhood of hating each other, and then there was a fucking _war_, and we had to grow up so fast and all of that morphed into some twisted angry lust, and we fucked around. We never had a chance at actual _love_, and even if we did, how am I supposed to love you _now_? Do you think I could ever touch you again? Fuck, I can barely stand to _look_ at you…”

“Obliviate me.”

Draco doesn’t know where this comes from, and he’s shocked at himself because he means it.

Harry laughs, short and sharp.

“Do it, Harry. Obliviate _me_.” He means it. He does. He actually means it. He can hardly stand to stand here, he wants to die, he wants to peel off his own skin. 

“Fuck you.”

“Just do it.” His voice is getting high, shrill, weak, pathetic. _Make me forget I fucking love you_. “Look, my life was already miserable enough without…”

“Oh, spare me the 'Poor Draco Malfoy' violin solo. You’re trying to rise above your father’s legacy? _Look what you’ve done._ Maybe I did decide to marry Ginny for the wrong reasons, and we probably wouldn’t have lasted, and I fucked up by cheating on her, but you didn’t protect me. You _wanted_ her to find us. Then you _impersonated_ me and manipulated Tessa and Astrid and whatever poor girl you pulled. And _Dash_. Dash was…”

Harry’s voice breaks, and Draco’s eyes fill.

“I was in love with him. I really was, and he was more of a man than you or I will ever hope to be, and you ruined his career, and maybe his life. And now you’ve put a perfectly nice bloke in the hospital for a month for the crime of agreeing to go flying with me. I didn’t even have the _chance_ to _care_ about him yet. So guess what, Draco _Lucius_, you are a Malfoy through and fucking through!”

“Then _shut up_ and _DO IT!_” Draco screams, and in a split second Harry pulls his wand and aims it at the center of Draco’s forehead. They freeze, their eyes locked on each other.

“Yes. Do it. Do it,” Draco whispers. “Do it. _Just do it._” He’s breathing hotly through his teeth. Tears are starting to leak from his eyes. _Do it, do it, do it, everything you said is true, I love you and it turned me into this, I never meant any of it, do it, do it, help me, please..._

They stare at each other. Draco can hear his own heart pounding in his head. 

“No.” Harry’s voice is quiet, his eyes not leaving Draco’s as he lowers his arm, slowly, steadily, and returns his wand to his pocket. “You don’t deserve it. You don’t deserve the peace that would come from obliviation. If I have to live with what you have done to me, and to all these people who have been hurt because I cared about them, then so do you.”

Draco shakes his head slightly. “That’s not what I…” His voice is dry, barely above a whisper. “You can leave all that. You can leave everything I did. Just... get rid of…” He gestures between them.

_This. Get rid of this. My love, this love, this goddamned _love_, that made me go left instead of right, down instead of up. This love that was supposed to save me, and instead made me destroy everything._

Harry’s gaze changes now, his eyes narrow and his head tilts, like he is considering it, but Draco knows the answer already, deep in his chest.

“No,” Harry says finally, his voice stronger now. “No. You can live with that too. And the possibility that if you had made different choices… I might have found my way to you after all.”

Draco’s legs threaten to give out and he wants nothing more than to collapse and surrender to the absolute fucking breakdown that is about to overtake him, but he won’t do it while Harry is standing here, because Harry is about to walk out of his life and he can’t let that image of him be the last one he ever sees. _When the fall is all there is..._

“France.” He’ll retreat to his mother. It’s the only possibility. He can’t go to work at the Ministry anymore, he can’t be in this flat, he can’t even be in London, he can’t be anywhere that Harry has ever been. He has to go and go far. He has to put an ocean between them, cement the chasm they will never bridge. He swallows past the lump in his throat. “Please.”

“Fine.” Harry says flatly. “Hermione is going to keep tabs on you. You’ll do whatever she says. If she wants you to report in once a week for the rest of your fucking life, that’s what you’ll do. If you stray one inch, or find someone else to obliviate the smallest memory, she will bring you back and throw you in Azkaban, which you know is where you belong.”

Draco offers the barest hint of a nod. He doesn’t trust himself to move another muscle.

“One last thing. Just so you know, I’m never going to ask her about you. Ever. And she will never tell you _anything_ about me.”

With that Draco’s eyes fall closed and he holds his breath. _Get out, I can’t hold on, please, just go..._

But Harry doesn’t move for a moment. And then another. And then, with a deep exhale, he walks past Draco, and out the front door. Draco doesn’t turn around, doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t breathe, and when he hears Harry pull the door closed behind him, not with a slam, but a soft, sturdy click, it echoes in Draco’s ears like a bomb blast.

From where he stands he re-wards the flat, and barely has the focus to add an extra layer of sound protection before he finally, finally, slumps to the floor, and dissolves.

* * * * *

He’ll never know that Harry stood outside for a minute, or that his keening was so loud it cracked through the sound barrier spell, or that Harry gave in to sobs of his own before moving on into the night.

* * * * *

_**Epilogue: One Week Later**_

Fifteen minutes before his train is due to pull in, Draco goes into the loo to splash water on his face. Merlin, he looks terrible. His eyes are dry, seemingly permanently red-rimmed and bloodshot. His skin is stretched and sallow over his cheekbones, his hair overgrown and ashen.

He stares at himself. He’s almost unrecognizable.

He doesn’t know what will happen now, what his life will look like, how to turn the next corner and leave everything he has known up to this point behind. He’s too tired to be scared about it.

When he finds Narcissa in the crowd, he can see her eyes start to fill, and tears jump to his own in a sympathetic response. He’s surprised about this. He didn’t think he had any left. They sting.

She folds him in her arms. “Oh, Draco,” she says, pulling away and framing his face in her hands. “What happened?”

He will be asking himself a version of that question every day for the rest of his life.

He’s not sure he’ll ever know the answer.

_~_

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are love! I am [roquentine19](http://roquentine19.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr. Thank you for reading!


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